Judge Can’t Extern

A recent opinion of the South Carolina Advisory Committee on Judicial Standards

RE: Propriety of a part-time ministerial recorder for a municipality accepting an externship with the solicitor’s office.

FACTS

A part-time municipal ministerial recorder also attends law school through a parttime/hybrid program. As a part-time ministerial recorder, the judge works Monday through Friday, 2 p.m. to 10 p.m., and issues arrest warrants and search warrants, issues summons and subpoenas, and presides over bond hearings. The law school has certain externship requirements and the judge has been offered the opportunity to gain work experience at the Seventh Circuit Solicitor’s
Office in a particular County. The municipality in which the judge serves in is partially within that County. The job at the Solicitor’s Office would entail the judge working one or two days a week from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. (so it would not interfere with the judge’s hours at municipal court) and would involve shadowing a practicing solicitor, conducting legal research and other supervised work. The cases on which the judge would work would not be cases that stemmed from the municipality in which the judge serves. The judge inquires as to the propriety of: 1) accepting this job to fulfill the externship requirements for law school; an 2) accepting the job for compensation should that opportunity arise.

CONCLUSION

A part-time municipal ministerial recorder may not accept a job with the solicitor’s office.

OPINION

The Code of Judicial Conduct does not prohibit judges from other employment, provided it does not interfere with judicial duties or otherwise violate the Code. Canon 4D(3). In addition, as we noted in Opinion 9-1999, part-time judges are even permitted to practice law, subject to several limitations under the Code of Judicial Conduct. The Code also exempts part-time judges from complying with Canon 4(C)(2), limiting the acceptance of governmental positions. S.C.A.C.R.501, Application of the Code of Judicial Conduct C, Canon 4C(2).

However, in Opinion 7-2021, we considered the propriety of a part-time municipal court judge also being employed as an assistant solicitor in a circuit that includes the municipality in which the judge serves. We found that the judge could not be employed as an assistant solicitor for a circuit that included the county encompassing the municipal court on which the judge presided. Similarly, we have previously found that part-time judges should not accept other positions in the Solicitor’s Office. See, Opinions 11-2002 (magistrate, whether full or part-time, could not be employed as clerk of computer records for Solicitor’s office); Opinion 19-2006 (parttime magistrate could not work in clerical position in the Worthless Check Collection department of a solicitor’s office). In both of those opinions, we found that employment in a Solicitor’s Office could cast doubt on the judge’s ability to act impartially and could create the appearance of impropriety.

Thus, we find that the judge should not accept the position, whether as credit for a law school requirement or compensation, with the Solicitor’ office under these circumstances.

(Mike Frisch)